Martyrdom Murder and Magic: Child Saints and Their Cults in Medieval Europe is a
comprehensive history of child saints and their cults from late Antiquity to the end of the
fifteenth century. The child martyrs of the persecutions including the Holy Innocents were
the first child saints recognized by the Church and their cults spread throughout Europe in the
early Middle Ages. Alongside these cults medieval society also venerated child martyrs
victims of political or domestic violence. The increasing role of the papacy in the
canonization process after the tenth century resulted in the veneration of saintly child
confessors in the high Middle Ages but from the end of the twelfth century most children
worshipped as saints were the alleged victims of ritual murder by Jews. This book considers the
formation and transformation of child saints and their cults in the context of popular belief
and the history of childhood.
